


An Unlooked for Retirement

by ReaperWriter



Series: When We Were We [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Aftermath, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, I apologize for my tragic muse, James is broken, M/M, Miranda being strong, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 08:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: In the aftermath of Thomas being taken, James asks Miranda a hard question on their way to the New World.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had intended "An Uncommon Courtship" to be a stand-alone, one off. My muse had other ideas.

“Do you ever regret it?”

Miranda looks up from her place at the railing. They’ve been days on the water, ridden out two storms, and she can’t help thinking that this must be what limbo is like. Endless days of tedium, trapped in between terra firma. What could have made James choose this as a life?

He looks at her, eyes mournful, shoulders slumped. She knows the raw power of his body. What it feels like to have him. What it feels like to watch Thomas have him. Thomas. Thomas. Thomas.

“I don’t understand.” She reaches her hand out for him, but he shies from her like a skittish colt. Just as every night he’s bedded down on the floor in their tiny cabin rather than share the hard, inadequate bunk with her.

“Do you ever regret it? Me?” He stops, swallowing, and it breaks something else inside of her, one of the few remaining whole things, to see him look so destroyed. “Letting me into your lives.”

“Oh, James.” This time she moves swiftly, wrapping her arms tight around him. She can’t be bothered to care what the crew might think, watching them from their duty stations. “Of course not.”

“But, it’s my fault.” The words crack, ripped from somewhere inside of him. Somewhere deep, where the light has gone out. Thomas. “If I’d never been sent to him, if you both had never met me, then he’d… You’d both be…”

“James, stop. Don’t torture yourself.” She moves her hands up, cupping his face. “The Earl is to blame. He did this. You did nothing wrong. None of us did anything wrong.”

Even as the words leave her, she is no longer sure. If they’d been more discreet. If they’d managed the servants more closely. If she’d been less profligate in her own affairs, less libertine.

“But…” His throat convulses, fighting down his emotions. James. Stoic, solid, dependable James. Unmanned and unmoored.

“Do _you_ regret it?” She pitches her own voice low, and he reacts as if she’s slapped him.

“NO!.” And there he is. Her James. Their James. Oh, Thomas.

“You too have paid a dear price.” Her fingers trace the shell of his ear and then comb into his dark red hair. “You were on a fast track in the Navy. Commander, likely soon. Captain. Commodore. Admiral. And Hennessey…”

“Hennessey betrayed me.” There is fire in his voice now. Rage, such as she hasn’t seen since they fled the Hamilton family townhome. “The Navy betrayed me. Who are they to say whom I should love? As if many others in the ranks have not found such comfort in each other.”

“Then know that I do not regret it. I do not regret you.” She leans forward, pressing up on her toes to brush a kiss to James’s cheek. “We keep faith, and we plan. We will get him back. We must. I can’t end thus.”

He doesn’t let go when she sinks back down to flat feet on the deck. He holds her, quiet for an age. Time really has no true meaning for her here, on the sea.

Just when she thinks he’ll let go, he leans down, his voice a gasp at her ear. “I would die for him. Or you.” She nods, unable to say anything to that. “And I will kill the Earl if it is the last thing I do.”

He lets her go, turning and striding away to speak to the Captain.

Miranda stares at him until the salt water stings her eyes and she has to blink. Sea spray or tears, she cannot say. Only that in that moment, James McGraw had disappeared.


End file.
